Arsenal will join the top seeds in the Champions League draw on Thursday afternoon following their victory over Udinese but Manchester City face a tough introduction to life in Europe's elite club competition. Roberto Mancini's side are among the group of third seeds, meaning a potential draw with Barcelona, Milan and Borussia Dortmund.

The other English clubs in the Champions League draw are all among the top seeds, alongside Barcelona, Real Madrid, Inter, Porto and Bayern Munich. Trabzonspor complete the line-up in pot four after Fenerbahce were withdrawn by the Turkish Football Federation due to an ongoing match-fixing investigation.

Mancini has made it clear he intends to rotate his squad to ensure the side are capable of challenging in Europe and the three domestic competitions. "[Rotating] is no problem for me," said the City manager. "The problem is if you don't have good players. For the manager it is not easy because all the players want to play every game. But when you play in four competitions and have a match every three days, there is space for everyone. It is impossible to play a top game every three days. And the Champions League is very hard. It is different from the Europa League. For this we need a good team, with good players and a good mentality."

Uefa's rules for the draw will see the 32 qualified teams allocated into eight groups of four teams. Each group will contain a top seed, plus one club each from the second, third and fourth pots. Each pot is determined by a club's Uefa ranking and the top two in each group will go through to the knockout phase of the Champions League, and the third-place side to the knockout phase of the Europa League.